Did you know that...

if you see lightning in the sky and count the seconds until you hear the thunder, you can get a rough idea as to how far away the lightning is?

If you hear the thunder five seconds later, it means the lighting is one mile away. If you hear the thunder fifteen seconds after seeing the lightning, this means that the lightning is three miles away.

I found this interesting and thought I'd pass it on.

Yeah. I learned that when I was a little kid. It's a fun thing for kids to do.

Now that I live in a place where thunderstorms are routine, I don't need to count. I have a pretty intuitive grasp of the spectrum between "Ahhh, a nice summer storml" to "AAGGHH crap! Head for the basement!"

When I lived in Illinois as a kid, I was told exactly what Phil was told...that each second constituted a mile.

Living in Southern California now, one rarely sees a thunderstorm. I'll sometimes see it when I go back to West Virginia to visit my girlfriend's relatives. And I'll see some *amazing* ones in Dharamsala. I wish I could describe to you what they look like, they're so epic and surreal and dramatic...I'll fall back on the cliche and say that they look like something out of a Spielberg movie. You can see these enormous gaping valleys that are bigger than the mind can comprehend, and see whole lightning storms roll in and unleash their fury and majesty on the valley below, the thunder literally echoing. Damn.

I have known that for many years, and now that I live in Florida I find it a valuable bit of information. This is especially true since, during thunderstorms here I can often be found outside taking pictures of lightning. Yea, I'm slightly crazy, wandering around with aluminum tripod in one hand and camera in the other, but, hopefully the results are worth it. http://www.pbase.com/rking401/lightning&page=all Pick your favorite.

Good description, sounds great. Similar to L.A., the angle of view here in NYC is pretty shallow due to the height of the buildings. I would definitely like to watch a storm sweeping across a huge panoramic landscape, I'm interested in checking out New Zealand at some point, that place looks to have some incredible terrain.

BTW Ken - have a good trip in the Himalayas, sounds amazing.

To my other SSS'ers - any interesting daily science (along the lines of Norm from Cheers) that you want to pass on?

I learned from Poltergeist not only that one second equalled one mile away, but that when the lightening got close enough the tree in the yard would attack me through the window.

Happens EVERY TIME.

nat whilk ii

That's a fact!

I have known that for many years, and now that I live in Florida I find it a valuable bit of information. This is especially true since, during thunderstorms here I can often be found outside taking pictures of lightning. Yea, I'm slightly crazy, wandering around with aluminum tripod in one hand and camera in the other, but, hopefully the results are worth it. http://www.pbase.com/rking401/lightning&page=all Pick your favorite.

Wow, Richard! Yes, you're crazy, but your photos are awesome! :thu:

Oh man, you got me on that one. I busted out laughing!

We have huge thuderstorms farily regularly in Texas.

I have known that for many years, and now that I live in Florida I find it a valuable bit of information. This is especially true since, during thunderstorms here I can often be found outside taking pictures of lightning. Yea, I'm slightly crazy, wandering around with aluminum tripod in one hand and camera in the other, but, hopefully the results are worth it. http://www.pbase.com/rking401/lightning&page=all Pick your favorite.

Man! How do you do get the timing right?

I first learned the lightning/distance rule when I was a tiny tot. I remember telling my son about it when he was about five and there was a (rare) thunderstorm here in LA.

I have known that for many years, and now that I live in Florida I find it a valuable bit of information. This is especially true since, during thunderstorms here I can often be found outside taking pictures of lightning. Yea, I'm slightly crazy, wandering around with aluminum tripod in one hand and camera in the other, but, hopefully the results are worth it. http://www.pbase.com/rking401/lightning&page=all Pick your favorite.

Man those are incredible! I especially liked this one: http://www.pbase.com/rking401/image/7758915

I love lightning. I love the smell of negative ions.

Supposedly electrical equipment--- like computers and music toyz-- put off a lot of positive ions which are alleged to make you enervated, depressed?

http://www.djclarke.co.uk/file04b.html

or:

http://www.static-sol.com/library/articles/air%20ion%20effects.htm

You leave the shutter open on bulb and the lightning decides when the timing is right. You can only leave the shutter open so long before the (hopefully dim) background light adds up, so you end up taking a lot of pictures in the hope of getting one great one.

Terry D.

I heard lightning actually strikes from the ground up.

It depends if you are talking about the actual electrons or the "holes".

Hi Richard,

I'm a big photography fan, also at times staying up all night to take some good shots at dusk (no tripod, I use the 5lb bag of brown rice on the railing instead).

Even though it's a little bit out of focus, I really like this one: http://www.pbase.com/rking401/image/3824297

It's a crazy combo - the excitement of deafening thunder mixed with taking a great shot, both on their own can be a lot of fun, together is definitely wild!

Just be careful and maybe go for a carbon or wood tripod to give your fellow forumites some peace of mind. And wear some rubber boots while your at it too LOL....

I actually took a course in lightning Physics from Bernard Vonnegut.

He was Kurts brother.

He was very well known in the field.

He poineered an understanding of ball lightning.

The atmosphere is a truly amazing thing.

It makes life on earth seem pretty fragile.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ball+lightning&btnG=Google+Search

You got that pretty much right, except if you are shooting for daytime lightning strikes. THOSE are the real challenge. Often lightning strikes are really double strikes, one following another in a very short time period. In chasing daytime strikes you have to sort of instinctively know when the second strike will come and capture it. That's how this one http://www.pbase.com/rking401/image/47473322 was done. This was shot at 6:30PM on an early August evening, while it was still very light out, although somewhat darkened by the clouds. The exposure time was 1/80th of a second.

Thanks, man. That was an early attempt when I was just getting into lightning photography, and, I think, one of the best that I have captured. I donated a print of that to a local charity and it sold on a silent auction for $380. I was very pleased and they were pleased. That one was shot with a Nikon CP990 3Mega Pixel camera. I think the exposure time was 2 seconds. That camera, being a fairly early digital would build up noise quite quickly and so the exposure time had to be kept fairly short. I got the aiming right and the timing right. I didn't even need to crop it at all.

I built myself a remote shutter release, a very simple project, for my camera and, when shooting lightning the camera is always on a tripod. A shutter release is actually a very cheap option, but I just wanted to build it for the "challenge" (it wasn't one).

The lightning in that picture looks blurred because it actually moved to the side during the strike. This is actually fairly common and another challenge in shooting lightning. The interesting thing about that picture is the sharpness of everything else in the picture.

I like the carbon fiber idea. I may look into that since we are coming up (actually in) lightning season. We have a lightning storm in progress right now, but the conditions aren't right for good pix.

I have known that for many years, and now that I live in Florida I find it a valuable bit of information. This is especially true since, during thunderstorms here I can often be found outside taking pictures of lightning. Yea, I'm slightly crazy, wandering around with aluminum tripod in one hand and camera in the other, but, hopefully the results are worth it. http://www.pbase.com/rking401/lightning&page=all Pick your favorite.

Nice pics..... what about a carbon tripod? Also, there is a "set and forget" lightening picture taker now.... but it isn't cheap. The value isn't that you don't have to be there (which you don't) but that it takes the shot at the right time.... I can probably dig up the name/model somewhere. I do some photography, but have been pretty chicken about going out in "weather" (well, except the occasional snow!!)

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edit: Had to go look up this little gadget (very expensive--so I doubt most of us will ever buy one) but it is at: http://www.lightningtrigger.com/ The main reason I put that link here, is because there are some awesome shots of lightning and if you go to the links on the side re: lightning photography strategies, photography tips and most importantly (for the more daring ones) lightning safety.... it has some good info. Hope this isn't out of place in a music forum. I see them both as very creative.

Interesting info, RJT. It's not as expensive as I expected it to be, but it's still out of my range. Maybe we should form a "club" and get a 10% discount for 3 or more.

Interesting info, RJT. It's not as expensive as I expected it to be, but it's still out of my range. Maybe we should form a "club" and get a 10% discount for 3 or more.

Unlike music, where I have total GAS..... I am much more controlled about photography. In my mispent youth I thought gadgets would make me a good photographer (hmmmmm....maybe a parallel with music here!!) and they didn't. So, now I have 1 SLR digital camera, 3 lenses, a good tripod, an off camera flash and a remote release. Everything else will have to wait.....even if we could get the 10% off!! Keep snapping Richard.... I like your pics!